Professor Daniel O'Connor

Daniel O'Connor is head of the Aged Mental Health Research Unit based at Kingston Centre, Melbourne.

After training in psychiatry in New Zealand, he worked as Research Fellow at Cambridge University from 1984 to 1990, heading a large, longitudinal study of dementia in the community. This study addressed the epidemiology of dementia, its diagnosis and natural history, service issues and the needs of carers.

In 1990, he was appointed Foundation Professor of Psychiatry of Old Age at Monash University. He has published over 80 papers and chapters on epidemiology, the recognition and management of dementia and depression in general medical practice, non-pharmacological treatments of behaviour disorders in dementia, and service evaluation. Major topics of interest at present concern ECT as a treatment of severe late-life depression and nursing home psychiatry. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students, supervises doctoral students, lectures widely in Victoria and interstate, and is chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Faculty of Psychiatry of Old Age. He is now head of the CRC node concerning behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.